Taxi Dispatch Software: 82 Questions, Answered

Taxi dispatch software is the system that takes a booking, works out the fare, picks the right driver and tracks the job to completion. It replaces the whiteboard, the radio and the spreadsheet with one screen showing every vehicle, every booking and every account customer. Modern systems are cloud-based, so your controllers can work from the office, from home or from a phone.

Most UK taxi dispatch systems cost between £50 and £150 per month for a small fleet, with per-driver charges on top and setup fees of £250 to £1,500. Taxi Dispatch is £0 to set up and £30 per month for your first five drivers, then £2 per additional driver, or a flat £120 for unlimited drivers. Branded app packages are £180 and £250 a month. No commission is taken on your jobs.

If you run more than about three vehicles, yes. Below that a phone and a notebook still work. Above it you start losing money to double-bookings, forgotten pre-books and drivers arguing about job allocation. Dispatch software pays for itself at around one recovered job per week, which is why we price the entry tier at the level we do.

For almost every independent operator, yes. Cloud systems have no server to buy, no server to fail and no engineer callout when it does. You get automatic updates and offsite backups, and your controllers can dispatch from anywhere with internet. On-premise systems still suit very large fleets with dedicated IT staff and specific data residency requirements.

A standard Taxi Dispatch setup is live within 24 to 48 hours. That covers your tariffs, zones, vehicle types and driver accounts. Importing existing customer and account data adds a day or two. Larger fleets switching from another system typically run both in parallel for a week before cutting over fully.

Yes. We import customer records, saved addresses, account details and booking history from every major UK system, including iCabbi, Autocab, Cordic and Cab9. Export your data as CSV and we handle the mapping. Your account customers keep their references and their invoicing continues without a gap.

Yes. Airport and chauffeur work needs flight tracking, meet-and-greet instructions, waiting time rules and fixed quoted fares rather than meters — all of which are standard in Taxi Dispatch. Chauffeur operators typically also use the account portal so corporate clients can book and be invoiced monthly.

No. Taxi Dispatch is billed monthly and you can cancel with 30 days notice. Several UK competitors require 12, 24 or 36-month terms, which is the single most common reason operators tell us they feel stuck. Your data remains yours and we export it for you on request at no charge.

Auto-dispatch scores every available vehicle against the job and offers it to the best match. Scoring normally combines distance to pickup, how long the driver has been waiting, vehicle type, zone position and driver rating. The job is offered to the top driver for a set number of seconds, then passes to the next. Controllers can always override it manually.

The five that determine whether the system works day to day are: reliable auto-dispatch, CLI caller recognition so the phone shows who is ringing, accurate fixed-fare quoting, account customer invoicing, and a driver app drivers will actually use. Everything else is useful but not decisive. Judge a demo on those five before anything else.

CLI, or Calling Line Identification, shows your controller who is ringing before they answer, along with that customer's saved addresses and booking history. A regular customer's booking can be taken in under ten seconds because the pickup address is already on screen. On a busy Friday night this is the difference between answering every call and losing them.

Per-driver pricing suits fleets with a stable driver count; flat-rate suits fleets that swell at weekends. The trap is per-driver systems that charge for inactive accounts, so a fleet of 20 active drivers pays for 35 registered ones. Always ask whether you are billed on registered drivers or drivers who actually logged in that month.

Ask five things: what is the total monthly cost at my real driver count, what is the minimum contract term, what happens to my data if I leave, is support answered by a human in the UK and at what hours, and can I speak to two existing customers of my size. Vague answers on any of these are the warning sign.

Start with your tariffs and your regular account customers, because those carry the most revenue risk. Load them first, run the new system alongside your existing method for a week, then move the phones across. Most operators find the first three days are the hard part and the team stops referring to the whiteboard by day five.

Driver resistance is the most common reason a rollout stalls, and it is nearly always about earnings rather than technology. Drivers accept a new app quickly when they can see the job offer, the fare and the pickup distance before accepting, and when allocation is visibly fair. Show them the job-offer screen at the start, not the admin features.

Yes. Taxi Dispatch stores driver badge numbers, licence expiry dates, insurance and MOT dates, and vehicle plate details, and warns you before any of them expire. Every completed job keeps a timestamped record of driver, vehicle, route and fare, which is what councils ask for during a compliance audit.

Taxi Dispatch costs £30 per month for your first five drivers and £2 per month for each additional driver, or a flat £120 per month for unlimited drivers. There is no setup fee and no commission on your jobs. A ten-driver fleet pays £40 and a twenty-driver fleet pays £60. Above that there are two branded options: App Plus at £180 a month adds a web booker and a customer app in your branding, and Branded at £250 a month adds branded driver apps and branded customer apps on both iOS and Android.

No. Setup, tariff configuration, zone building and data import are included at no charge. Several UK suppliers charge £250 to £1,500 upfront for the same work, which is worth factoring into any comparison you make on monthly price alone.

No. You keep 100% of every fare. Commission-based dispatch platforms typically take 5% to 15% per trip, which on a fleet turning over £20,000 a month is £1,000 to £3,000 gone before costs. Our model is a flat monthly fee regardless of how many jobs you run.

The £30 per month plan covers up to five drivers and includes the Driver App, the full dispatcher system and real-time GPS tracking. There is nothing held back for a higher tier: the dispatch board, live map, driver allocation and tracking are all in the entry plan.

None. There are no setup charges, no activation charges, no app charges and no GPS tracking charges. The £30 monthly fee is all-inclusive. This matters when comparing quotes, because several suppliers advertise a low monthly rate and then bill separately for the driver app or for tracking.

Additional drivers are £2 per driver per month on top of the £30 base, so a ten-driver fleet pays £40 and a twenty-driver fleet pays £60. Growth scales to any fleet size on that basis. Once the per-driver total reaches the flat £120 Enterprise price, which happens at fifty drivers, Enterprise is the cheaper plan and we move you onto it rather than letting the per-driver bill keep climbing.

Enterprise is £120 per month for unlimited drivers, with no vehicle limit and no minimum term. There is no setup fee. It is the cheaper plan from fifty drivers upwards. If you also want your own branded apps, App Plus is £180 a month and Branded is £250 a month, both with unlimited drivers.

Yes. You can move to Enterprise at any time and all of your existing bookings, driver profiles, history and data carry over seamlessly. There is no rebuild and no downtime — it is a change to your billing, not a migration. We will tell you when you reach the point where it saves you money.

One to five drivers is Starter at £30 a month. From six drivers it is Growth at £30 plus £2 per active driver, which scales to any fleet size. From fifty drivers the flat £120 Enterprise plan is cheaper, so that is where we put you. App Plus at £180 and Branded at £250 are for operators who want their own branded passenger and driver apps — that is a branding decision rather than a fleet-size one.

App Plus is £180 a month for unlimited drivers and adds a web booker and a dedicated customer app in your company branding, with all integrations included. Branded is £250 a month and goes further: a web booker, branded driver apps and branded customer apps on both iOS and Android. Both include a dedicated account manager, priority phone support and a custom SLA on request.

Only until the flat plan becomes cheaper. On Growth the £2 per-driver charge reaches £120 at fifty drivers, and £120 is the Enterprise price for unlimited drivers, so that is where we move you. Both prices are published on the pricing page, so you can check the crossover yourself.

No. There is no minimum contract. It is a monthly rolling plan, so you can upgrade, downgrade or cancel whenever you need to. Multi-year auto-renewing contracts are common elsewhere in this market and are the most frequent reason operators tell us they feel trapped with their current supplier.

No. You are billed on active drivers, meaning drivers who logged in during that month. Seasonal fleets and firms that expand for weekends are not penalised for keeping dormant accounts on the system.

Yes. As soon as a driver switches On Duty in the Driver App, your dispatcher or control room can see their live GPS location. They do not need to have started a job first, so you can see who is genuinely out and working before you allocate anything.

Yes. All On-Duty drivers appear together on a single live map, provided they are logged into the Driver App and have location permission enabled on their device. One screen shows you where your cover is concentrated and where it is thin.

Yes. GPS tracking continues to update while the driver remains On Duty, including when the app is running in the background or the phone screen is locked. The requirement is simply that the driver stays logged in and has not blocked location permission on the device.

Driver locations update every 6 to 10 seconds. That is frequent enough for the dispatcher to see genuine movement and give customers an accurate arrival time, without draining driver phone batteries over a twelve-hour shift.

Yes. The dispatcher sees each driver's current status clearly — On Duty, Available, On Job, Offline and so on. Status is shown alongside position on the live map, so you can tell at a glance who is genuinely free rather than just nearby.

The dispatcher can still see that driver's last known location along with the exact time it was last updated. Whether the driver closed the app, lost connection or disabled location services, you are never left guessing where a vehicle was last seen.

Yes. The system can alert the dispatcher when a driver with an upcoming allocated booking is still Offline or not On Duty ahead of the pickup time. This is what stops a pre-booked airport run being missed because a driver overslept.

Yes. You can allocate bookings hours or days in advance, and you will see the driver's live location as soon as they come On Duty — before the job itself begins. Pre-booked work can therefore be checked and reallocated well before the pickup time.

Yes. Drivers receive allocated bookings in the Driver App and can accept or reject them, and the dispatcher sees the driver's response in real time. A rejection surfaces immediately so the job can be moved on rather than sitting unnoticed.

Yes. Drivers can view their upcoming bookings and update their availability in advance through the app. This removes most of the phone traffic between drivers and the office about who is working which shift.

Yes. The control room can send messages and notifications directly to individual drivers through the Driver App, so instructions reach the right driver in writing rather than over an open radio.

Yes. Bookings can be created manually in the dispatcher system and allocated or reallocated to drivers as needed. Automatic dispatch handles the routine volume, and the controller keeps full manual override for anything that needs judgement.

A booking can be reassigned to another driver in seconds, and the new driver receives it immediately in their app. Breakdowns, no-shows and last-minute changes are handled without ringing round the fleet.

Yes. The system retains driver and job status history and GPS location history for a limited period, in addition to the current live position. This is what you use to settle a disputed job or a customer complaint about waiting time. We are happy to go through the exact retention periods on the demo.

Yes. Every logged-in vehicle appears on a live map with its current status: available, on the way to pickup, passenger on board, or on a break. Controllers can see at a glance where cover is thin, and customers can be given an accurate arrival time rather than a guess.

Yes. Account customers book with a reference or purchase order number, jobs accumulate against the account, and invoices generate automatically at month end as PDF or CSV. Corporate clients can be given a login to book their own journeys and download their own statements, which removes a large amount of office admin.

Yes. Fares are calculated from your own tariff tables using real road distance and time, plus any rules you set for waiting time, airport surcharges, night rates, bank holidays and vehicle type. The customer gets a fixed price at booking, so there is no dispute at the end of the journey.

Yes. You can build unlimited tariff tables and switch between them by zone, day of week, time of day, date range and vehicle class. Airport runs, school contracts, night rates and executive vehicles can each price differently and the system picks the correct one automatically.

Yes. The system sends booking confirmations, driver-on-the-way alerts with vehicle and driver details, arrival notifications and completion receipts by SMS, WhatsApp or email. Automatic arrival messages are the single most effective way to cut no-shows and the "where is my taxi" calls that block your phone lines.

Standard reports cover driver earnings and settlement, job volume by hour and day, account customer spend, cancelled and no-show jobs, average pickup times and revenue by zone or vehicle type. All export to CSV or Excel. The pickup-time report is the one most operators use to decide where to add cover.

Yes. The system is cloud-based, so multiple controllers can work simultaneously from the office, from home or from different branches, all seeing the same live board. Each controller has their own login and their actions are recorded against their name in the audit log.

Yes. Taxi Dispatch integrates with standard VoIP and PBX systems to deliver CLI, so an incoming call opens that customer's record automatically. We support the main UK telephony providers used by taxi offices and will confirm compatibility with your specific setup before you commit.

Yes. Passenger and driver apps are published under your own company name, logo and colours on the Apple App Store and Google Play. Customers download your app, not a shared marketplace app, so the booking relationship and the customer data stay with you.

The driver app shows job offers with pickup, destination and fare before the driver accepts, then provides turn-by-turn navigation, one-tap status updates, passenger contact, and a running shift total. Drivers can see their own earnings and completed jobs without having to ring the office.

Yes. Passengers can save a card and be charged automatically on completion, pay by link sent as a text message, or pay the driver in the vehicle. Card payments settle to your own merchant account, not ours, so the money never passes through us.

Yes. Once a driver is allocated, the passenger sees the vehicle moving on a map along with the driver name, vehicle make and registration, and a live arrival estimate. This is the feature customers most consistently compare against Uber, and it is included as standard.

Allow two to three weeks. Building and branding takes a few days; the rest is Apple and Google review time, which we cannot speed up. We publish under your own developer accounts so you retain ownership, and we handle the submission process on your behalf.

Any Android phone from roughly the last five years, or any iPhone from the iPhone 8 onward, will run the driver app comfortably. The app is built to be light on battery and data because drivers are running it for a full twelve-hour shift.

It is a trained team who answer your phones and dispatch your drivers using your own system, under your own company name. Customers ringing your number hear your greeting and never know the controller is not sitting in your office. You keep the bookings, the customers and the revenue.

Outsourced dispatch is charged per hour of cover rather than per call, so a busy hour costs the same as a quiet one. This is almost always cheaper than employing night controllers directly once you count National Insurance, holiday pay, sick cover and recruitment. Contact us for a quote based on your hours and call volume.

Yes, and that is how most operators start. Covering 10pm to 6am and weekends is where in-house staffing is hardest and most expensive. Many firms then extend the cover once they see the call answer rate improve.

Controllers are briefed on your zones, landmarks, common pickup points, airport routes and regular account customers before going live, and they dispatch using your own tariff and zone setup rather than guesswork. Local knowledge gaps are handled by the system, which already knows the road distance and correct fare.

Calls route through redundant lines and the dispatch system is cloud-hosted across separate servers, so a single point of failure does not take your phones down. If you need it, we can also configure an automatic fallback that diverts calls to your own office number.

Yes. No card details, no obligation and no automatic conversion to a paid plan when it ends. You get the full system rather than a cut-down version, configured with your own tariffs, so you are testing the thing you would actually buy.

The trial runs for long enough to cover a full trading cycle including at least two weekends. At the end you either move onto a monthly plan and keep everything you set up, or you walk away and we delete your data. We do not chase or auto-bill.

Yes, and we recommend it. Running real jobs through the trial is the only way to know whether the auto-dispatch logic and the driver app suit how your fleet works. Most operators run their pre-booked airport work through it first, since those jobs are the least time-critical.

A 30-minute screen share where we take a booking, dispatch it, follow it through the driver app and generate the invoice, using your fleet size and your tariffs as the example. You will get a specific monthly price at the end rather than a brochure. There is no sales script.

Yes. Most new customers find a taxi firm through a Google search on a phone and will not install an app to make a single journey. A website that quotes a fare and takes the booking in under a minute captures that customer; sending them to an app store loses most of them.

Yes. The booking engine uses the same tariff tables as your dispatch system, so the price a customer sees online is exactly the price your controller would quote. The job then drops straight onto your dispatch board with no rekeying.

Yes. Local ranking comes down to a fast mobile site, correct LocalBusiness structured data, a properly filled Google Business Profile, and genuine pages for the routes and airports you actually serve. We build all of that in rather than bolting SEO on afterwards.

Yes. The domain is registered in your name and you keep full ownership of the site and its content. If you ever leave us, the site goes with you.

We integrate with the main UK providers including Worldpay and Stripe, covering in-person card machines, pay-by-link and saved-card charging in the app. Our payment solutions page compares upfront cost, monthly cost and transaction fees so you can pick on real numbers.

No. Card payments settle directly into your own merchant account. We never hold your takings, which means there is no float, no payout delay and no risk to your cash flow if anything happens to us.

Yes. Your controller sends a payment link by SMS or WhatsApp and the customer pays on their phone browser. This is the usual route for account overspill, pre-booked airport work and customers who will not install anything.

There is no single best system, only the best fit for your fleet size. Autocab and iCabbi are strong for large fleets that want network integration and have the budget for it. Cordic suits established operators comfortable with on-premise. Taxi Dispatch is built for independent operators under about fifty vehicles who want low fixed cost and no lock-in.

On total monthly cost for a small fleet, Taxi Dispatch is among the lowest in the UK market at £30 per month for five drivers with no setup fee and no per-job commission. Free tiers exist elsewhere but usually cap features, charge per SMS or take a percentage, so compare the total bill rather than the headline.

The three reasons we hear most are cost creeping up at renewal, being locked into a multi-year contract, and support that takes days to answer when the board goes down on a Friday night. Feature gaps are a distant fourth — most systems do the core job adequately.

The risk is real but manageable, and it is mostly about timing. Switch mid-week rather than before a bank holiday, run both systems in parallel for a week, and move your account customers first. Data import from any major UK system is straightforward; the harder part is retraining controllers, which takes about three days.

Yes. Your phone number belongs to your telephony provider, not your dispatch supplier, so it moves with you. Your customer and booking data is yours under GDPR and your current supplier must provide it on request. We handle the import free of charge.

Check the notice period, the auto-renewal clause, the price escalation clause and the data export terms. Multi-year auto-renewing contracts with 90-day notice periods are common in this market, and operators frequently discover the window has closed. Diarise your notice date the day you sign.

Support is available during UK office hours with out-of-hours cover for anything that stops you dispatching. Because taxi work peaks when offices are closed, urgent faults on evenings and weekends are covered rather than queued to Monday.

Anything that prevents you taking or dispatching bookings is treated as urgent and picked up immediately. Everything else is answered the same working day. You reach a person who knows the system, not a ticket queue and not a script.

Yes. Initial training for your controllers and drivers is included in setup, and further sessions when you take on new staff are included too. We do not charge for training, because a controller who has not been trained properly generates far more support calls than the training costs us.